Conference Circuit

Iran - Not Just a Rogue State is the title of a strategic dialogue co-sponsored by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the S. Daniel Abraham Center.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
Sunday, October 28 Tel Aviv University's Institute for Latin American History and Culture together with the S. Daniel Abraham Center for International and Regional Studies will host a lecture by Fernando Henrique Cardos, former president of Brazil and Professor of Sociology, who will speak on "Trends in Brazil's Economy and Politics in the New Context of Latin America." The moderator will be Prof. Raanan Rein, Vice-Rector, Tel Aviv University. The event will be held at 6 p.m. in the Gilman Building, Room 496. Admission is free of charge. For further details call the S. Daniel Abraham Center for International and Regional Studies. Telephone: (03) 640-6667/8, or check out the Web site http://www.tau.ac.il/humanities/abraham. Monday, October 29 Russia's Aton Asset Management will hold a conference at the Tel Aviv Hilton, with the participation of senior Russian government representatives, to encourage Israelis to invest long term in Russian stocks, such as in the oil and gas, metals and mining and retail sectors. The Aton Asset Management group is the third largest enterprise of its kind in Russia, and in recent years has maintained its place among the 50 top players on the Russian Stock Exchange. In 2006, Aton was involved in transactions valued at a total of $93 billion. A CONFERENCE of Chief Financial Officers organized by the events division of Matrix in cooperation with PriceWaterhouseCooper's Advisory Division and Kesselman and Kesselman will be held from 9 a.m. at the Ilana Goor Museum in Jaffa. The conference will examine Enterprise Performance Initiatives. The keynote speaker is Olivier Delcourt, Senior Consultant EPM Partners, Business Objects. Participation is by invitation only. For further details, call (09) 959-8024. THE BESA Center will host a conference on Violence in the World of Islam: an academic look at unconventional warfare, terrorism, civil wars and low intensity conflicts in the Islamic world The event will be held at 11 a.m. at the Feldman Conference Center, Bar-Ilan University. THE PALESTINE-Israel Journal will host a public discussion on "Gaza and Sderot: The Reality Not Covered by the Media." The event will feature a panel of speakers including Amira Hass from Ha'aretz; Prof. Kenneth Mann, Adv.' Nomika Zion from the Urban Kibbutz Migvan in Sderot; a personal testimony from a Gaza resident; and Dr. Eyyad Sarraj, Director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program. The discussion will be moderated by journalist Anat Saragusti. This event is taking place in conjunction with the publication of the latest issue of PIJ, which fill focus on "The Economic Dimension: Past, Present and Future." Discussion will begin at 8 p.m. at the Leonardo Center, Beit HaKibbutz Ha'artzi 13 Leonardo DaVinci St., Tel Aviv. ACCLAIMED SONGSTRESS and reformed drug addict Rivka Zohar will be among the speakers at a symposium on combating drug addiction to be held at the Open University, 108 Ravutzky Street, Ra'anana at 7 p.m. Other speakers include television personality and investigative journalist Hanan Azran, Dr. Yossi Peled, Nurit Metz and Sharon Yitzhaki, who have all written books about drug addiction and how it affected people close to them. Entry fee is NIS 25. Pre-registration is required. Call (09) 778-1834. THE MAYOR of San Paulo and the Deputy Governor of Sao Paulo will be the guests of honor at a seminar on Doing Business with Brazil that will take place in the auditorium of Bank Leumi, Yehuda Halevy Street, Tel Aviv. The event begins at 5:30 p.m. For details, contact: Mario Burstein director Israel Latin American Chamber of Commerce (03) 510-3310. MICHAEL E. RAYNOR, author of The Strategy Paradox, will be the keynote speaker at Deloitte's Technology Fast 50 conference at the Tel Aviv Hilton. Sessions begin at 8:30 a.m. A DISCUSSION evening to mark the publication of Wadi Salib by Yifat Weiss, will be held at 7 p.m. at the Van Leer Institute, 43 Jabotinsky Street, Jerusalem. Speakers will be Dr. Yehuda Shenhav, Prof. Danny Rabinovitch and Dr. Tamar Berger. Tuesday, October 30 ONE OF the most unifying periods in contemporary Jewish history was the Struggle for Soviet Jewry in which Jews around the world from all religious streams and from all shades of political opinion joined forces to urge the Soviet authorities to "Let My People Go." This year marks the 40th anniversary of the rise of the Jewish National Movement in the USSR. The anniversary will be marked by an exhibition and reminiscences at Beth Hatefutsoth at 6:45 p.m. Coincidentally, the opening speaker, is Natan Sharansky, who became the most internationally well known of the dissidents and Prisoners of Zion. He subsequently became an Israel government minister and is today chairman of the Board of Directors of Beth Hatefutsoth. Other speakers will be Zeev Bielski, Chairman of the Jewish Agency and the WZO; MK Rabbi Michael Melchior, chairman of the Knesset Committee for Education Culture and Sports; Aba Taratuta, Chairman of the Remember and Save Association; and Prof. Irwin Cotler, a leading human rights activist, currently a Canadian MP and formerly Minister of Justice and Attorney General in Canada. Also in attendance will be members of the 35s, a British group of women who campaigned ardently on behalf of Soviet Jews, and as an outcome of their efforts brought the issue to wider world attention. THE 4TH International Water and Environmental Technologies Conference and exhibition will be held at the Israel Fairgrounds and Convention Center. WATEC 2007 is being held in Israel because it has the largest RO Desalination Plant; the world's most developed irrigation methods, the world's highest rate of reused water; the world's most advanced national water management system; the world's most advanced solar technologies; effective solutions for municipal solid waste; and the best technology to reduce air pollution. Top level water experts from Israel and abroad will participate in the conference. Among those attending will be Bambos Charalambous, Manager of Urban Water Systems Specialist Group, Cyprus; Mary Ann Dickinson Executive Director, Alliance for Water Efficiency, USA; Christopher Gasson, Global Water Intelligence, UK; Timothy Holding, Minister for Water, Victoria, Australia; Karlene Maywald, Minister for Water Security, South Australia; Craig Wallace, Miinister for Natural Resources and Water, Queensland; Nathan Rees, Minister for Water Utilities, New South Wales; Hu Siyu, Deputy Minister the Minister of Water Resources, China; and numerous other dignitaries and senior executives of water focused enterprises. IRAN - NOT Just a Rogue State is the title of a strategic dialogue co-sponsored by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Strategic Dialogue. The event will be held in the Tshuva Auditorium at the Netanya Academic College commencing at 9 a.m. Former and present-day diplomats and academic experts from some half dozen of Israel's institutes of higher learning are among the speakers. GATEWAY 2007, The Israel Foreign Trade Event, will be held at the Dan Panorama Hotel, Tel Aviv with the participation of delegations from Iceland, Ukraine, US, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Turkey, Japan, Mexico, China, Slovakia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, Romania, Russia and other countries. Keynote speakers will be Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Eli Yishai and Ukrainian Minister of Economy and President and Chairman of major Ukrainian industrial and entrepreneurial organizations Anatoliy K. Kinakh. Wednesday, October 31 THE THIRD Breakfast Club meeting of young political, business and social leaders and potential leaders in Jerusalem will take place at 9 a.m. at Beit Ot Hamutzar, 12 Hebron Road, Opposite the Cinematheque. The breakfast club is primarily geared towards young entrepreneurs and people with initiative who understand the need to upgrade business in Jerusalem. The meetings, which will provide ample opportunities for networking and listening to the success stories of people who have succeeded in many walks of life, will be held every two months. For further details and registration, call Orly (02) 629-8154. THE WORLD Zionist Organization will mark the 90th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration and the 55th anniversary of the passing of Israel's first President Chaim Weizmann at 1:30 p.m. in the Weizmann Hall of the Jewish Agency Building, 48 King George Street, Jerusalem. The event will be held with the participation of WZO and Jewish Agency chairman Zeev Bielski, Social Welfare and Diaspora Affairs Minister Isaac Herzog and prominent figures from the WZO. The keynote address will be delivered by Prof. Shlomo Avineri of the Hebrew University, who is a former director general of the Foreign Ministry. Thursday, November 1 THE PRIME MINISTER'S Conference for Export and International Cooperation will be held in Tel Aviv with the participation of President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Finance Minister Ronnie Bar-On, Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Eli Yishai, Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer and many other prominent public figures and business leaders from Israel and abroad. Overseas notables include: Angel Gurria, Secretary General, OECD - Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development; Gunter Verheugen, Vice-President, European Commission in charge of Enterprise and Industry; Herve Novelli, Minister of Enterprises & Foreign Trade, France; Jacques Rogozinski, General Manager, Inter-American Investment Corporation, USA; Geddel Vieira Lima, Minister of National Integration, Brazil; Sir Ronald Cohen, Chairman, The Portland Trust, UK; Greg Brown, President & Chief Operating Officer, Motorola, Inc., USA; Eliot Spitzer, Governor, State of New York (TBC), and Bassem Awadallah, Director of the Office of His Majesty, King Abdallah II. For details and registration, call: (03) 514-2877. TO MARK the 90th anniversary of the Jewish Legion and the Zion Mule Corps as well as that of the Balfour Declaration, the Jabotinsky Institute will host a symposium under the title "This is your task." Speakers will be Prof. Yehuda Lapidot, Prof. Yigal Ilem, General (Res), Doron Almog. The moderator will be Yossi Ahimeir, director of the Jabotisnky Institute. The event will be held at 6 p.m. at 38 King George Street, Tel Aviv. Friday, November 2 COPING WITH Pain, a conference for sufferers and their families will be held at Gan Oranim in the Tel Aviv Fair Grounds. The conference is the initiative of five not-for-profit organizations that are umbrella bodies that collect and disseminate information about various types of pain-related illnesses. Leading medical experts from a variety of medical disciplines will share their knowledge on coping with and relieving pain. For further information, call Mandy (054) 723-3073 or Liat (052) 249-7217.